


walk after lunch

by AmandaBecker



Series: What if? [2]
Category: Sanditon (TV 2019), Sanditon - Jane Austen
Genre: F/M, Mr. Crow - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-01-30 03:06:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21421153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmandaBecker/pseuds/AmandaBecker
Summary: What if..... a walk after lunch at Lady Ds, turns into an interesting conversation?
Relationships: Charlotte Heywood & Sidney Parker, Charlotte Heywood/Sidney Parker
Series: What if? [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1544161
Comments: 13
Kudos: 106





	1. Interesting

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you find it as funny to read as i did to write

Sidney was annoyed of Lady Denham. First she was mocking Georgiana and now she was arguing with Miss Heywood and her opinion of marriage. Lady D. doesn't believe, that a young woman doesn't search for a wealthy husband.

He believed her and could not compared her with the other young ladies who surrounded him like flies, just because he was relatively wealthy.

Miss Heywood was pure and real. A little naiv maybe and little bit to frank but in a good way. Finally she spoke her mind freely and represented it as well. She was brave to say such things to a great Lady.  
Sidney had to admit, that he liked her. Because of all of this, but also of her wit and kindness. Maybe also for her beaming eyes, her handsome face and this sweet pink lips.

After their goodbyes to Lady Denham, the rest of the party took a walk in the gardens. Crow walked slowly to catch up with Charlotte and Sidney was not unpleased to join them. 

"So, Miss Heywood, do you really want to stay unmarried forever?" Crow asked.  
"I never said that," she replied calmly.  
"You only want to marry for true love, but nobody can marry for love, you have to take care of your future and your family."

„Mr. Crow, I assure you, my opinion will not change in this case. I only want to marry when I am deeply in love and hopefully my husband will love me deeply, too.“ 

„How could he not?“ Crow said what Sidney was thinking. Charlotte looked questionally up to him and Crow continued,  
„You are a feisty, but a pretty young girl, so I believe you’ll find a husband who will loves you deeply.“ With a smirk and dirty thoughts written all over his face, Crow left them to catch up with Miss Clara.

Sidney shook his head at his friend's behaviour towards a young lady, but she didn't seem to understand the double meaning behind his words. 

„What do you think?“ she asked him after a while. Taken aback he answered, the first thing on his mind „I daresay he is right.“  
„of what exactly?“ she looked up at him with her big doe eyes, innocent almost shy smile and light blushing cheeks.  
„That I have to marry a random someone for the sake of my future and my family“ she turned her gaze away „or that my future husband will love me deeply.“  
Now he blushed, because her smirk in her eyes told him, that she understood the double meaning of Mr. Crow's words quite well. 

„I... ehm... I guess both.“ She turned around to meet his eyes, and her smirk faded, but her blush turned even deeper and she bit her bottom lip.  
Sidneys breath faltered in his throat and his heart beat faster. Oh, what's going on here?  
Charlottes lips opened slightly and she licked them because her mouth suddenly dried at the sight of him. His eyes had almost turned black and she couldn't interpret the strange expression on his face.  
He swallowed hard and she looked at his mouth, then at his eyes again. 

A warm tickling sensation spread in her stomach and flooded her whole body. If she hadn't stopped walking, she probably would have stumbled over her own feet.

"Interesting." she mumbled with a strange expression on her reddened face.  
Then she left his side to join Mary.

With big eyes he watched her and shook his head.  
Later he will have to swim in the cold sea to be able to think clearly again. Getting the images of her out of his head will be a difficult task, because he was sure they would haunt him at night.


	2. further conversations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> more interesting conversations after the luncheon...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for reading and your kind regards, kudos and comments!  
I am very happy you read and like my storys.

Again and again Charlotte dared to look over her shoulder. Repeatedly she caught Mr. Parker doing the same thing.  
Their gaze met constantly and then a warmth spread in her, as if she would hold a hot brick on her stomach.  
Her heart made a strange jump and her cheeks began to glow. Again and again.

Astonished Sidney looked over at Miss Heywood. Suprised at the twist the conversation took and the feelings which had triggered in him.  
Amazed that he cared what she thought and what she felt. After all, he had assured her, and himself, that this was not the case.  
Taken aback whether this girl, no, this woman, could perhaps be more than just his brother's annoying guest.

He shook his head, but couldn't avoid a grin, just at that moment she looked back at him. His smile disappeared and the beating of his heart was so rapid that he had to stop walking for a minute. A slight smile twitched at the corner of her mouth and for a blink of an eye, Sidney felt that they were both completely alone.  
The babble of voices mixed with the sound of his blood and the beating of his heart.

Only when Mary touched Charlotte's arm could she detach herself from his gaze. Her cheeks were reddened and Mary followed the direction Charlotte had stared.  
But there was no one left. She looked around and saw Sidney hurrying away with quick steps.  
She smiled and took Charlottes arm in hers.

"How did you like i tat Lady Denhams, Charlotte?" she asked neutrally.  
"Erm, yes." Charlotte answered absent, but then regained her composure and after breathing a moment, she continued.  
"I liked it quite a lot. Of course not how she talked to Miss Lambe, but otherwise. It was very ....entertaining."  
"I saw you talking to Mr. Crow and Sidney earlier. How do you find him?" Mary looked out of the corner of her eye and Charlotte was nervously blinking her eyes.  
"Yes, yes. Mr. Crow is...well...cheeky."  
Mary laughed heartily and asked her if Sidney had been cheeky, too.

"No, he was...he was...erm" Charlotte was looking for the right words and Mary had to bite her lip not to laugh.  
"...he can also be cheeky, even impertinent." Said Charlotte confidently and nodded to give her words even more strength.

"But like I told you before, he's got a good heart. He is a good guy. I would be happy for him if he finally settled down."  
"But you were worried whether it was in his nature at all." Charlotte was curious and you could hear it in her voice. Mary grinned and answered with conviction,  
"Yes, I know. But now, I think, it depends on the woman."  
"well, that will be difficult then. With his behaviour." An ironic smile surrounded Charlotte's lips. Mary glanced to her again and explained further,  
"...if it's the right woman, then he will... “  
Charlotte's heart pounded up to her neck, she didn't know why she was suddenly so excited.

"He will what?" Asked Charlotte a little too fast and Mary sighed, stopped and looked seriously into her eyes.  
"He will behave like an idiot."  
"Oh," that wasn't the answer Charlotte had been expecting.  
"He'll try to keep her at arms length, because he's lost faith in love."  
"oh,...I'm sorry..to hear that."  
Charlotte said with compassion and looked in his direction. She carressed his face with glances before he looked up and she quickly lowered her eyes.

"But he's worth it!" Mary patted her arm and went on.  
Why do I have the feeling I missed something? Charlotte asked herself.  
She had to accelerate her pace to keep up with Mary. And when she walked next to her again, she noticed that they were almost back with the men.

Sidney felt her presence before he saw her. His hair on his neck stood up and his heart began to beat faster again.  
Like several times when she had looked over to him. He had to leave. Again he speed up his pace so to not run the risk of having her near him again.  
It was confusing enough! But when she stood next to him, so close, too close, then he couldn't think clearly and maybe said something like before again.  
Something clearly ambiguous. And he didn't want to be to blame for confusing a young lady.

To escape her, he said his goodbyes to the company without looking in Charlotte's direction again and disappeared with Mr. Crow to the carriages.  
Miss Clara accompanied Mary back to the house to pick up Tom. Lord Babington offered Charlotte his carriage to take her back to Trafalgar House.  
But she refused as she preferred to go for a walk. And to be alone with her thoughts.

Sidney looked anxiously in Charlotte's direction as she started her journey home all by herself. He looked to the sky and knew that the weather on the coast was changing fast and that a young girl from the country didn't know the dangers so well. 

"If you want to take her....," Crow remarked smirking, "...just ask her."  
"What? No, no." He replied quickly, "I just thought that the weather would change soon and she...she...".  
"She'll arrive totally soaked at Trafalgar House?" finished Crow Sidney sentence.  
"Erm, well..."  
"Oh, then I'd know what I'd do." Crow grinned dirty.  
"What then?" Sidney curiously asks his friend.  
"Well, wait in your brother's house, with warm blankets."  
"Ah," Sidney nodded to himself.  
"The sight must be divine." Sidney looked over at his friend and already suspected that the next sentence would be clearly ambiguous.  
"Miss Heywood, soaked from the rain. The wet hair sticks to her face, the wet clothes to her..."  
"Stop it!" Sidney shouted possessive.  
No one, really no one should speak about young ladys this way. Or think this at all. Especially not about Miss Heywood!  
Although Sidney had to admit that he couldn't shake off the picture in his head.

"As if you hadn't imagined it!" laughed Crow, "I saw you staring at her!"  
"Crow!"  
"It's all right. She's a hell of a girl."  
"Crow!  
"All right, all right! She's not my type." He calmed down his friend.  
Sidney grumbled something to himself. Until his friend once again said something that hit the nail on the head.

"But as it seems, she is yours."


	3. rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> as Sidney feared, rain surprised Charlotte...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess it it's my last one before Christmas. So I wish you all a very happy Christmas.   
But I'll write more this year..  
I promise.

Sidney paced nervously through the room. It just took too long. When he finally heard the door he was so relieved, he had to hold on to the door frame for a moment as he went into the hall to the others. His smile disappeared immediately when he only saw Mary and Tom.

"Where is Miss Heywood?" he asked alarmed.  
"Is she not here?" Tom sometimes gets him so upset! Otherwise he wouldn't ask about her.  
"Oh, Sidney," Mary complained, "I thought one of you had taken her."   
This is exactly what he was trying to avoid. It was so, so frustrating. Why couldn't she just do what any young lady would do?

"She may have gone back to Lady Denham," said Tom. But Mary immediately contradicted him.   
"After she felt offended by her?"  
"I see. No. What do we do now?"

But at that moment Sidney had already stormed out of the house. He fetched his horse and hurried it, despite the bad weather, towards Lady Denham's. She could be anywhere. When the area became more overgrown he began to slow down so as not to miss her. After a while he even began to call her name. First decently with Miss Heywood, later even with Charlotte.

Feverishly, he wondered what she might have done. After all, she was intelligent and grew up in the country. It wasn't the first time she'd been out in such scary weather. Of course, the coast had the surprise on her side, and the weather could change here from now on. Still, Sidney was convinced that she knew what to do in such weather if she was too far from a safe place.

When he thought he could catch a glimpse of her, he let the reins loose too much and when a loud thunder banged, his horse reared up and the next moment Sidney was lying in the mud. The impact squeezed all the air out of his lungs and he felt a stabbing pain through his right leg. You gotta be kidding me. He called for his horse, but there was no sign of him anywhere. Swearing loudly he tried to sit up but knew already in this moment that it must be a more serious injury.

His thigh hurt extremely, slowly he tried to touch his leg with shaky hands, but he could not really bring himself to do so. He was afraid to feel what he feared. Cold sweat on his forehead mixed with the heavy rain and in no time he was soaked. All because he was too proud and confused to take Miss Heywood home. Who knows what happened to her. Sidney noticed how his vision was slowly fading and just managed to turn sideways before he passed out.

Clutter. A song of angels. Lovely. Steady. Something warm pressed against his head.   
"Please!" he heard a pleading voice. Crying. But calm. Strangely familiar, yet strangely distant. Sidney forced his eyes to open, they were heavy. Everything was blurry.

"Please!" That voice again, and that warmth on his face. Then a pain. Deep and overshadowing. Pain. He opened his eyes and saw her. Her eyes were big and sad. But she smiled down at him with love. Her hair tickled his face. When had she changed her hairstyle?

"Sidn... Mr Parker!" she exclaimed. He had heard what she was about to say and stared at her.   
"You are here. You are with me. You're with me again." Charlotte laughed in relief. She briefly disappeared from his sight. But he felt her warmth on his neck. Was she pressing herself against him? Sidney tried to move, but something was pressing on his arm. Charlotte came back into his vision. He tried to smile at her, but he wasn't sure if he could.

"All right," she said in a firm voice.  
"What is..."  
"Oh, Mr Parker. You're hurt. Your leg. I erm...I had to take your tie off to make a bandage." She blushed. "I'm sorry."  
"No" finally got his voice back. "it's all right."

Sidney made arrangements to sit and Charlotte helped him do so.  
He looked down at himself. His tie was wrapped around his thigh. Apparently, he was bleeding, because it looked like a tourniquet. But what worried him even more was that it was pretty far up. Near a very delicate area. He felt heat rising inside him. Disappointed that he was not awake to see this sensation and to watch her face.

Following his gaze, Charlotte blushed all the more and muttered   
"Sorry."   
"There's no need." he said softly, smiling at her. The pain was just bearable.  
"Well, it's my fault you..."  
"That's true, though" he interrupted her harshly, "what were you thinking?"  
"Wh..at?" she stuttered.  
"that you run alone in the woods?"  
"I'm not."  
"But of course! I saw you leave. I thought you were going straight to Trafalgar..." he grumbled, but this time she interrupted him.  
"Mr. Parker!"  
"You could have gone to Layd Denh..."  
"Mr. Parker!"  
"But no, independent, smart, little Miss Heyw..."   
"Mr. Parker!" she almost screamed. 

Sidney looked her in the face, which was strangely close to his. And it was not because she was yelling at him that he became silent, but because her warm fast-moving breath tickled his face. Her eyes were so big from that close up. Dark. Like bitter chocolate. She penetrated him with her gaze and he wanted to dip into her eyes and lose himself in them.

"When I arrived in Trafalgar, Mary told me you'd gone to look for me."  
"Oh."  
"Yes." she blushed even more and lowered her eyes. No, no! He wanted her to look at him again,   
"How did you get to me so quickly?" he asked in a warm, gentle voice.  
"Your horse came along and...well..." She pointed her head in one direction. There was his horse tied to a tree.   
"You rode him?" Sidney felt the stabbing pain again and he clung to something. It was her hand. Charlotte flinched with a warm flash as he grabbed her hand and squeezed. But she didn't pull it away, she tried to calm him down as much as she could.

"Yes, I can ride." she said dryly, ignoring the firm grip.  
"yes I mean, he's wild and..."  
"I think I've tamed him" she amusingly said. 

Not only him, thought Sidney, and shrugged at the next thunder. They had to get out of the weather. But he had to ask one more question before the faint could have him back.

"...it's...not a Ladys-saddle," he snorted. Charlotte laughed briefly. He stared at her.  
"No, it's not." 

Oh, what he would have given to see Miss Heywood riding on his wild friend in the manor. The skirts above her knees. Sidney felt his cheeks turn red again. Since when had he become a young fellow again? He could not remember the last time he blushed. Oh yes, he did! Earlier, in their conversation right after lunch.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Parker."  
"What?"  
"I'm afraid we have to try to go home." A warmth flooded through him at her words. His heart beat wildly. His wounded leg throbbed in unison with the beating of his heart. The murmur in his head increased.

"Please, no!" she shouted. Charlotte grabbed his face with both hands and looked him firmly in the eyes, pleading in a low voice.  
"Mr Parker, please!" she pleaded.  
"What?" he whispered and looked strained into her eyes, but her mouth was so close and so sweet. Her hands on his face a sensation. All over his body it was tickling and throbbing.

"Stay with me," she returned. He could only nod, because somehow that sentence seemed to have meaning. At least to him.  
"You must get up. We have to get on the horse so we can go back."

He felt hot and cold. At the thought of standing up with what appeared to be a broken thigh. But the heat rising in him came from her. All because of her.

"Fortunately, her leg is not broken," she told him.  
"It didn't?" he asked confusedly.  
"I don't think so, when I patted it down..." Sidney could not hear any more, the fanaticism went through with him and he could only see in his mind's eye how Miss Heywood felt him up.  
"...that is good."  
"I beg your pardon?" he asked.  
"Well," she said with a smile, "that you only have a flesh wound...“ she answered innocently.  
"Yes, yes."  
"All right." Charlotte got up and tried to get him on his feet somehow. She supported him as he lifted himself up in pain. He leaned on her a lot and it was actually much less really necessary, but he just couldn't let her go now.

When, under pain and great effort, they had managed to get him on the horse. He reached out his hand to her and with one foot in the stirrup she made it onto the horse in one smooth movement. Charlotte, however, sat behind him, and not in front of him as Sidney had wished. But as it turned out, that was also a very good decision. Because that's how he was able to enjoy her delicate little hands around his torso. Her breasts pressed against his back, her face between his shoulder blades. Her warm breath tickling at his neck. 

"Thank you!" he said over his shoulder. And as the rain and he roared wind above them and a loud thunder spurred the horse.   
Charlotte had no chance to say anything. Instead, she pushed herself closer to him.


End file.
